Autumn means we pivot away from our summer of gardening and nature reserve tasks and resume our monthly deep cleaning of the food bank on Cowley Road.

The day-to-day tasks at the food bank take up all the time of volunteers, so there is never time to shift shelving and give everywhere a really thorough clean. Over the last couple of years we have become efficient at working our way round the main hall of the foodbank from October to March, deep cleaning a different section each month.

Last night we started our process. Splitting our team between kitchen and main hall, we shifted and cleaned crates and shelving, swept the floors, mopped the floors, sorted through fresh produce to ditch anything going off (some VERY mouldy mushrooms!), cleaned fridges, disinfected the walls, and took out food waste. A one hour flash-mob can make light of a deep clean.

Great work team!